Half of women working in Canada say they have experienced sexual harassment over their careers, according to a new poll from Insights West.

Facebook timelines lit up with #MeToo posts last month, as more and more women felt comfortable speaking about sexual misconduct they’ve experienced, often in the workplace. At the height of that social media movement, it became clear that the majority of women have had these experiences.

These numbers, from an online study conducted among 451 Canadian women last month, seem to bear that out.

The Insights West study used the definition of sexual harassment laid out on Canada’s labour code: “any conduct, comment, gesture, or contact of a sexual nature that is likely to cause offence or humiliation to any employee; or that might, on reasonable grounds, be perceived by that employee as placing a condition of a sexual nature on employment or on any opportunity for training or promotion.”

Presented with this definition, 50 per cent of women in Canada say they have experienced sexual harassment. Five per cent say they have experienced a “significant amount”, 12 per cent say a “moderate amount”, and 33 per cent say they have experienced a “small amount” over their careers.

But fewer than 30 per cent of women chose to report the harassment.

Just 28% of women reported behaviour that placed a condition on their employment or future career to a superior or human resources department, and only 22% reported offensive or humiliating behaviour. In other words, seven of every ten women sexually harassed at work choose not to report.

This is what happens when one fears they won’t be taken seriously, or nothing will come of a complaint — concerns that the numbers support as well. Among women who did choose to report sexual harassment, 46 per cent, or less than half, said that the offending employees were penalized or reprimanded.

“It is evident that many working women in Canada have faced unwanted situations during the course of their careers,” said Insights West spokesperson Mario Conseco. “However, very few of these incidents have been duly reported, partly because there are low expectations for significant action.”

Among those that didn’t report, 41 per cent said they didn’t feel the incident was a big enough deal to bother, 34 per cent feared being perceived as troublemakers, 30 per cent believed their employer would do nothing or dismiss the complaint as unimportant, 30 per cent felt too embarrassed, and 27 per cent feared retaliation.

The results of the Insights West poll are based on a study conducted from November 22 to November 29, 2017. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points for the entire sample, nineteen times out of twenty.

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